Holy Shit!
Yep, that's ... ambitious!
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has laid out an audacious multibillion-dollar plan to send colonists to probably die on Mars. On Tuesday, he unveiled an Interplanetary Transport System: a fleet of spacecraft capable of delivering people to the Red Planet so they can create a permanent human settlement complete with a fuel-generating …
Average temperature -55C, atmosphere almost 100% CO2. Between 35 and 250 million miles away from the only source of supplies and aid. Yet he thinks "most of those passengers would be looking to permanently relocate to Mars". He might find a few loons wanting to spend the rest of their (possibly very short) lives on Mars, but, no one sane.
Yes. Another potential loon here. But there are unanswered questions about property rights. If I go to Mars as a colonist, can I stake out an area of it and have it be legally mine? Like colonists have in olden days (only with the difference being that this time the land really is vacant rather than displacing people already living there).
Don't worry, Netflix will probably offer to send a preloaded server on the trip. When they get there they can use the very high latency, very limited bandwidth comms to earth to slowly update the local cache of videos rather than do more important things.
Seriously though how do you keep that many people entertained for months?
"Seriously though how do you keep that many people entertained for months?"
You send the ones who like to read.
Have you got any idea how ludicrously little storage you would need in today's terms to store absolutely EVERYTHING that has ever been written, if it were all available in digital.form..?
"He might find a few loons . . ."
Perhaps, but what I think he will find is a strong field of very resourceful, very intelligent, and very brave people willing to devote their lives to the difficult, dangerous and demanding task of helping start the long and laborious process of attempting to gain the a foothold out in the solar system.
And it will be a long task and it will take many generations before any 'normal' people can ever hope to live in anything like comfort on another planet, but that doesn't make the inevitable pioneers 'loons' for helping get us there.
Those people who do accept this challenge will be helping to create a future that neither they nor anyone else alive today will ever experience and for that I will applaud their courage rather than question their sanity!
Quite rightly put. If we stuck with the 'few loons' mentality then Australia could possibly still be free of European influences, not that I am suggesting we ship several hundred convicts to Mars to act as slave labour of course.
"People will have the option of coming back if they get homesick."
Is there a discount for buying a return ticket, just in case?
"And it will be a long task and it will take many generations before any 'normal' people can ever hope to live in anything like comfort on another planet, but that doesn't make the inevitable pioneers 'loons' for helping get us there."
Indeed, it's arguably not unlike the early settlements in the USA with long dangerous journeys to cross the atlantic, unknown dangers and challenges to overcome, the very real possibility of not surviving, and the reality that you'd likely never see your homeland again.
Hopefully it won't be too many more generations until "normal" people can start inhabiting the USA! :)
dan1980, that's possibly the worst possible outcome. Getting resourceful people to sacrifice themselves for a few generations getting a toe-hold on Mars will make it effectively impossible to terraform the place. They'll never be budged, but they will be stuck in a primitive system with little hope of ever taming it. Do you want to be the government that tries to pry them off-world to allow the comet barrage to commence?
The real problem is the lack of resources on Mars. On earth, we sit on the waste products from a few billion years of photosynthesis -- nice amounts of hydrocarbons, metals, amines, and oxygen. As a result we can eat, breathe, and dig up useful resources. It's the basis of stuff we call 'fire' and 'life' on earth.
On Mars, you have iron oxide and CO2 -- it's near the chemical equilibrium and there are few or no spontaneous chemical reactions. Chemistry won't be your friend, you'd have to bring the energy for every single chemical reaction you'd want to drive.
Scarcity of resources is not an issue if your colonists won't likely to survive a trip or arrive with brain cancer
Obviously no-one is going until there is a solution to that. A hard problem, but not impossible. Elon's big booster rocket probably needs to make a few more trips to lift enough shielding material like water, or some hydrogen-rich plastic.
Would rocket fuel do ?
Yes. Some Mars missions outline the use of propellant as shielding, though it depends on the propellant. You don't want to wrap a liquid hydrogen tank around a hot passenger cabin, for example. The SpaceX choice of methane is a bit challenging for space storage because of its very low boiling point, so it might not be suitable for shielding.
The water requirements of 100 passengers offers one shielding option, and even unrecycled solid wastes may be considered for shielding.
Water starts cutting down radiation levels pretty quickly. 10 centimeters should halve the full flight dosage. This .pdf is an excellent look at Mars and Lunar exploration shielding. Figures 11, 12, and 14 assess various materials.
@Schultz - I think you'd have to send solar panels and robots in advance of the people to build the kit that would collect the energy. It would take a great deal of patience. It would be interesting to know if SpaceX are working on calculating how much patience.
> "He might find a few loons wanting to spend the rest of their (possibly very short) lives on Mars"
Well when Mars One was announced, 200,000 people signed up for a 1 way trip. That's a queue of people that would have reached from London to Birmingham! And that programme didn't have anything like the credibility SpaceX does. There'd be millions of applicants for the first Heart of Gold mission to Mars, one way or not.
The reality is that many people would prefer to burn out their lives brightly (possibly literally) and possibly go down in the history books, than continue to fade away in their current insignificance.
"Well when Mars One was announced, 200,000 people signed up for a 1 way trip."
From the Mars One web site:-
"Most people would give an arm and a leg to be allowed to stay on Earth so it is often difficult for them to understand why anyone would want to go.
Yet many people apply for Mars One’s mission and these are the people who dream about someday living on Mars. They would give up anything for the opportunity and it is often difficult for them to understand why anyone would not want to go"
Pretty much confirms what I suggested - that most people think ones that want to go are loons.
Mars or Dole queue.... Hmmmm?
Mars it is. Let's go.
-55 C- Pah, I'm from Inverness, I like the cold.
almost 100% CO2- breathed worse, grew up in a pub before the smoking ban.
250 Million miles- So, delivery companies think anything North of Glasgow is remote and whack a surcharge on delivery, nothing new there.
I'll get packing.
Amen,
Whilst we should all command his eccentricity, this seems somewhat of a pipe dream.
$200,000 rules the average "TOWIE" viewer that wants to be famous.
I can't imagine any real scientists are going to want to be the first ones out there knowing full well it's a death sentence with no guarantee of a legacy.
Here's a list of people signed up to Virgin Galactic flights, the likely candidates for more money than sense. I'm all in favour of sending Angelina Jolie as ambassador of Earth but can't envision her doing anything useful on the red planet.
http://www.agent4stars.com/virgin-galactic-passenger-list/
He might find a few loons wanting to spend the rest of their (possibly very short) lives on Mars, but, no one sane.
Most of the explorers of the last few thousand years (and more) could be classified as "loons". They set out on journeys which most people thought were death sentences (and they probably realised their chances were slim). In fact, most of them did die, but a handful (those we remember) survived their journeys and discovered strange new lands.
Without these explorers, we would not have discovered or colonised many places. I view this mission the same way: Very risky, not something I'd be able to do, has a lot of potential to be a complete disaster, but a very worthy goal which has the potential to benefit all mankind. Kudos!
100% CO2 but at an atmospheric pressure which we on earth would call a vacuum. And you forgot to mention the radiation (no shielding ozone layer or magnetic field).
Inhabitants will have to quickly dig tunnels and get underground and rarely comeback to the surface. Not my idea of fun!
>"He might find a few loons wanting to spend the rest of their (possibly very short) lives on Mars, but, no one sane."
The advertising industry considers this one of the top hundred adverts from 1900-2000:-
Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success." - Shackleton's advert for the north pole expedition.
He got 5k applications. Given the profile of the people interested in going it shouldn't be totally impossible to get enough people who work in a technical field (say, IT) who are both capable of dealing with highly technical equipment, working under pressure and most importantly SICK AND FUCKING TIRED OF DEALING WITH IDIOTS.
Ok, maybe we might have been driven insane over the years. Enough so to go to Mars to get away from an endless 9-5 grind which might end with a livable pension, if the pension provider doesn't go out of business and leave you a penniless serf unable to ever retire.
@Peter2
I'd go like a shot. House is worth well over the $200k requirement and wouldn't need currency there. I would require several guarantees though:
1) That I won't have to drive a Tesla out there, will I?
2) That I will never, ever see a Microsoft or Apple product again in my life,
"He might find a few loons wanting to spend the rest of their (possibly very short) lives on Mars, but, no one sane."
I suspect the population would be mainly scientists and engineers with the goal of dedicating their lives and careers to the wealth of scientific research such a base would allow. Pyjama-clad armchair critics with no imagination probably need not apply.
... because it's hugely improbable, at all?
I'm all for massive ambitions, and this programme will generate technological and possibly scientific progress, but sending people to die on Mars will be a huge turn-off for the general population, even if the pioneers are well-informed volunteers.
As long as it's a finite improbability, and he's got the kettle on...
Oh, and:
I'm all for massive ambitions, and this programme will generate technological and possibly scientific progress, but sending people to die on this ocean voyage will be a huge turn-off for the general population, even if the pioneers are well-informed volunteers.
It works in Kerbal Space Program
Seriously though, this has been his aim from the start.
And did anyone see that huge composite fuel tank? That's something Lockheed-Martin couldn't manage to do for X-33. They built a prototype, had one crack appear, and threw in the towel. Great show of American design talent and persistence right there.
GC "...did anyone see that huge composite fuel tank?"
No. You didn't see it. Nobody saw it.
You saw an artist representation of it. The real version, ready?, hold tight!, DOES NOT EXIST.
That's why it doesn't have any cracks in it.
Are we, as a species, losing the ability to distinguish the difference between CGI and the real word?
You've certainly conflated the two...
Umm, no that wasn't an artist's impression. That was a real tank which he commented that they have already done initial leakage tests on (and it didn't leak). It's very hard to leak test CGI. He said they started on the tank as that was one of the hardest things to get right.
Did you watch the video?
"Are we, as a species, losing the ability to distinguish the difference between CGI and the real word? You've certainly conflated the two..."
No mate. He didn't. that would have been saying "Musk succeeded where Lockheed failed!". Instead he merely said "Lockeed failed. Does Musk really hope to best them?".
Oh, and while I have enormous respect for hard science and engineering - at the rate vision paired with will and means to try something difficult keeps getting scarce these days, someone putting a CGI thing like that with a serious intent in a powerpoint presentation might soon become more remarkable than others figuring out how to make it actually happen.
And did anyone see that huge composite fuel tank? That's something Lockheed-Martin couldn't manage to do for X-33.
Lockheed Martin's design for the X-33 fuel tank - and the X-33 overall - had a lot of overly ambitious design features. The integral foam core and double-lobed design were a nightmare to produce with then-available composite manufacturing techniques and vulnerable to cryo-pumping in the core.
A composite tank with a simple shape and external insulation is a much simpler proposition.
> SpaceX founder Elon Musk has laid out an audacious multibillion-dollar plan to send colonists to probably die on Mars.
Well, yes, they're colonists. Whether they die on their second day or forty years later, after having children and grandchildren, they probably will die on Mars.
Colonists was what I was thinking.
In 1840 my ancestors left Plymouth for the other side of the world, with no expectation of ever returning, and they never did. They did found New Plymouth though.
Having an atmosphere to breathe did make the job somewhat easier I suppose.
So doing it someplace different has to be worth something.
Seriously, getting humanity onto more rocks has to be the most meaningful goal possible. Even better if we arent rock-dependant but thats probably further down the track.
World peace and cures for cancer only count as waypoints or aids to that aim - they would be extremely helpful but I really hope they arent pre-requisites.
By what metric would it be "the most meaningful goal possible" without resorting to circular logic? Or rather, what would it accomplish that couldn't far more easily be done on a planet that's superior for human habitation?
It would seem far more meaningful & effective to figure out how to implement suspended animation, improve spacecraft speed, and find a human-habitable planet within reasonable reach, then colonize *that.* In the meantime, teams could use the Moon to invent & master techniques for tasks like terraforming, water production, and food production. Much of what they'd learn in the process could also be used to improve life/survival here on Earth as well — ultimately benefiting people on Earth, people that travel to the new planet, *and* the generation of kids that'd be stuck living there.
That sounds like a more meaningful plan than "let's have some people live for a while in a hellish environment because it's on a planet written about heavily in early science fiction stories."
>>"By what metric would it be "the most meaningful goal possible" without resorting to circular logic"
That's a pretty easy one. By the metric of safe-guarding the survival of the species. If humanity is wiped out, our ability to attribute meaning to things goes with it. A self-sustaining colony on another planet is one the most powerful things we could do to safe-guard our species. And you can't get to a self-sustaining colony without going through a dependent colony (at least not any time soon).
That's how it can be defined as "the most meaningful goal possible". As Carl Sagan said: The dinosaurs are no longer with us because they didn't have a space program.
"including a re-usable booster powered by 42 of its new Raptor engines."
I'm sure I recently saw an article that showed how the Russian multi-engined (30?) rockets were a failure.
There were too many points of failure and one engine exploding damages the adjacent ones.
Apparently that's why they never got men on the moon.
I'm sure I recently saw an article that showed how the Russian multi-engined (30?) rockets were a failure.
The Russian N-1 was a failure for many reasons. The 30 first-stage engines were a complication and engineering challenge, but not a cause for failure alone.
The Russians only committed to the moon landing years after the Americans, and only did so with a fraction of the resources the Americans firehosed at Apollo (and its supporting programs: Gemini, Surveyor, Ranger, Little Joe, Lunar Orbiter, etc.) For example, when the N-1's main engine started the development of Apollo's first stage F-1 engine had been underway 5 years.
They never tested an all-up first stage of the N-1 in static test fires. Instead, they only tested engines individually, and only 2 out of every 6 engines got a test fire. This means the Russians went into their first flight tests with no clue of the numerous plumbing problems; software problems with their KORD control system ("KORD" is apparently Russian for HAL 9000); poor welding that shed metal into engines; and exotic plume aerodynamics that forced spins on the rockets.
So, by the time America had flown Saturn V's in Apollo 4 (unmanned), 6 (unmanned), and 7 (manned), and tested out the upper stages and lunar hardware in numerous Saturn I / IB launches, the Rooskies were just ready for their first launch - which they made into an all-up, complete launch of the untested N-1.
There were engine explosions in the four test flights, but those weren't automatically fatal. The fires that followed could progress into problems (as happened in the fourth flight), but KORD tended to respond by first shutting down opposite engines to balance thrust, and then liked to turn off ALL the engines (launch 1). Or all but one, so the rocket flipped over and headed back for the launch pad (launch 2). So when unforeseen water hammer or pogo oscillations (found in Apollo 4 and 6) developed and engines caught fire, a recoverable problem turned into a crash for the N-1.
Atrocious quality control meant the Russian pipelines tended to shed metal pieces from welds into the engines, which led to the second launch's failure. Instead of fixing the welds, they added mesh filters to the fuel lines. Likewise, the first launch's plumbing problems were fixed with fire extinguishers, not the dampers and improved plumbing that the US ironed out through Apollo test flights.
Similarly, the lack of aerodynamic knowledge about the rocket, its unusual shape, and rocket plume meant the third rocket went into an uncontrolled spin and started flinging upper stages off. The Russians fixed this not by improving aerodynamics or the main engines, but by adding large roll control rockets.
None of the N-1's problems stem solely from having lots of engines. Lots of engines do offer a lot of ways for things to go wrong. However, lack of testing, lack of quality control, rushed schedules, and low budgets can prevent the problems from going away. The same issues killed the Apollo 1 astronauts.
By the fourth N-1 test flight, Apollo 17 had returned from the moon and there was no way the Russians could win the Space Race. The program was shutdown, and then the Russians convinced the West for 20 years that they had never been in the moon race to begin with. "Ha ha, stoopid Americans, wasting all that money on Apollo when we weren't even building rockets for the moon!"
Very nice.
But you have to say "soviets", as "russia" was just a part of the whole soviet republic thing.
Lots of non-russians in that program.
Don't sweat it though, Hillary's fanbase is packing out the hammer & sicle to paint The Other Candidate as a Red Menace, everybody forgets that the Soviet Union has gone away more than 20 years ago.
No mention of taking groups of people for a week in orbit. If he can get people to Mars for 200k, he should be able to manage that for a reasonable price. Currently people pay tens of millions for a quick jaunt to the ISS and Branson is asking a small fortune for a few minutes of sub orbital flight.
I don't think much of El Reg's sneeringly defeatist tone about folks dying on Mars, nor the comments suggesting you'd have to be mad to want to go. There have always been people infected by what is arguably humanity's second greatest blessing (after the ability to feel compassion for others): curiosity—adventurousness; inquisitiveness; wanting to go, and wanting to know. I absolutely understand how some of our species, and not only the best and brightest, would jump at the chance to be pioneers, even on a very risky endeavour like this. The voyage to Mars might, after all, be statistically more survivable than three months across the Atlantic in 1750.
My real worry is that these unrealistically aggressive timescales, which won't and can't be achieved with the stated technologies, ultimately foster the lubbers' and proxmires' carping that space travel isn't achievable and a waste of time anyway. If you're gonna say "People to Mars in six years", you have to offer something way better and more credible than the "Bigger fireworks" rationale. Shuttle was another big firework, and we saw how dismally that failed. We used fireworks to send men to the moon nearly 50 years ago ... and got bored and didn't bother any more. (Humanity's greatest curse—politicians: every single vice miraculously packed into a single mouthing head.)
By my reckoning the only way to get placed on Mars a viable population and the enormous mass of infrastructure and stores needed to keep them alive using current technology would be an Orion¹ nuclear ship (it's powered by sequential nuclear blasts beneath a pusher plate), and a big one (big is better) could do the entire mission in a single lift. The tech and engineering sound wild but are actually eminently practical and achievable.
Unfortunately "nuclear" has assumed the status of Unspeakable Bogeyman, without anyone actually running the math, so it won't happen unless we face an existential planetary crisis. A pity, because we DO need to get some our eggs out of this fragile basket. And using clean nukes, we could put a 100,000 tonne (yeah, the size of a supercarrier) Orion in Mars orbit with less fallout and cancer risk than one-thousandth of that created by decades of above-ground warhead testing.
Perhaps we need an Asteroid-Is-Coming scenario to wake us up and get off our asses ....
[¹ — If curious, search for DARPA Project Orion; Project Daedalus; or Project Longshot.]
Nah. Big fireworks are fine, so long as you don't try and do the whole lift in one go. Hence, get to orbit, reassemble/refuel there, then go for it. I've been saying for decades that if the Apollo programme had done the same, we'd've got to the moon a bit later, but we would still have been in space today.
I think Musk's approach should work, so long as the new engines can be made reliable enough. As far as I can tell they've cracked most of the technology problems already.
GJC
The Orion program was insane. There was another program for nuclear powered rocket engines that didn't use bombs to make it go. I believe that the test facility in the US is mothballed, but could be brought back online. The ship would have to be assembled and launched from Earth orbit, but there is the possibility of being able to accelerate all the way (and decelerate, even though one doesn't use that word in physics). Travel time would be cut down considerably and/or trips wouldn't have to be scheduled only when the orbits allow for a minimum energy flight. Many possible health problems from low G and cabin fever would also be eliminated.
The first flights could deliver infrastructure and tools. Later flights could position landers to go to and from the surface. Once everything is in place, people could make the trip.
Yes, I think there is plenty of He2 and He3, although I'm no expert.
But the plan is to turn water and CO2 into Methane and Oxygen using solar power, for a whole bunch of very good engineering reasons around fuel handling, combustion, and ease of implementation.
Fusion might be useful for spaceflight in the far future. Basing a plan that starts now on it would be somewhat, erm, brave.
GJC
No CO2 and less water, AIUI. Not good for fuel production,
There are options for lunar fuel production. The moon has plenty of oxygen in its minerals to begin with, which addresses half the requirements for most chemical propellants and most of the propellant mass. Even hydrocarbon fuels use about 2.3 times as much oxygen by mass as hydrocarbons, while hydrogen-oxygen rockets typically run at 6:1 (7:1 has been demonstrated).
So, skipping the diffuse hydrogen detected on the moon, you could just bring hydrogen from Earth. With Musk's monster rocket, you're able to generate thousands of tons of hydrogen/oxygen fuel per rocket flight from Earth. That can fuel an entire network of orbital transfer vehicles and lunar landers.
If you're daring, you can try to use oxygen in ion engines so unmanned LOX delivery vehicles to save the hydrogen required for most of the payload between low Earth and low Lunar orbits. That'd also combine well with a lunar rotovator.
Another approach is to use sulfur, which the moon has in some quantity. "Brimstone rockets" are sulfur-oxygen rockets. While not efficient, with specific impulses of about 250, that's enough to escape a low gravity world like Luna and set up a completely moon-based fuel system for near Earth orbit. Again, it'll mesh well with a rotovator.
The great advantage of a lunar base is travel time. When you're working in cis-lunar space you don't have lengthy flights of Mars missions and fuel delivery/storage becomes much easier. All shipments become much easier - in emergencies, for replacement parts, for passenger deliveries. Radiation shielding in flight doesn't need to shroud the whole vehicle, just small, short-term "storm shelters." Every problem is more fixable when the rescue mission or replacement for some failed mission is only 3 days away rather than 3 to 9 months. For modest increases in delta-V the travel time from Earth to the moon can drop to 1 day.
Note that helium-3 isn't a useful resource until you can make a working fusion reactor. Helium-3 (with deuterium) is also significantly harder to fuse than tritium-deuterium selected for the ITER reactor. Also, it's quite possible to breed helium-3 on Earth - it's the decay product of tritium, and tritium can be bred by neutron bombardment of light elements like lithium and beryllium.
So we have pioneering explorers who set out to climb Everest or find America (not that it was lost) and some died at sea and we don't know anything about them but some found.. stuff and lived. So those are the odds we're comparing here, just so I'm clear? The commentators here who want to go to Mars think going there is like finding America (still wasn't lost) which is on Earth which we already live in and can breathe the air on and walk around in and build stuff with stuff we find lying around.That's like going to Mars?
I don't think so.
And those who think that going would be heroic.. no you'd be like those people who died on the way to America who we don't know about. Except with the added bonus of Martian atmosphere, space travel, radiation poisoning and everything else.
I'd love there to be a visitable colony on another planet. And sure, start with Mars if you must with the better goal of finding Earth 2. Which begs the question why land at all? Why not take the Battlestar Galactica approach and build ships we can live on rather than colonising a completely inhospitable planet? I'd sign up for space station duty before Mars duty.
There was also a comment about curiosity being mankinds second greatest blessing. How far did that get Curie? It would imho be more sensible to send prison inmates to mars and see what happens. If they survive we can just humanely dispose of them later and then take over. Why send the scientists first? We still need those guys.Curiosity needs blending with various other human characteristics before it's safe to act on.
The commentators here who want to go to Mars think going there is like finding America
Not quite. They think that going to Mars with 2020 technology is similar to finding America with 1000 (Norse) technology.
And those who think that going would be heroic.. no you'd be like those people who died on the way to America who we don't know about.
Whether or not you ultimately become famous, it's heroic to try. Besides, the real question is not "Am I likely to be remembered by history as a hero?" it's "Is this more or less heroic than my current life as a vacuum cleaner engineer?"
I'd sign up for space station duty before Mars duty.
But a space station doesn't have access to any raw materials, it can never hope to make itself self-sustaining so it can never fulfil the ultimate point of a Mars colony, Backup Earth.
There was also a comment about curiosity being mankinds second greatest blessing. How far did that get Curie?
It got her two Nobel prizes, the discovery of two elements and probably more earned respect than any other woman born prior to 1900. Yes she got cancer but she lived to 66. I'd take that any day.
Fine, you stay put. For myself, it's the adventure itself. Like moving to a strange place and seeing what happens. I'd like to see something that I've never seen before, even if it will kill me. I'm one of those with a sense of wonder about the universe and this would be a prime opportunity to fulfill that sense. So hell yes. I go in an instant with no regrets no matter the outcome.
People usually forget that it was the B-Ark passengers that survived while everyone else died.
And they died precisely because the B-Ark people weren't there doing their jobs, phone sanitizing of all things.
I don't know if Adams intended it, but it looks to me that it was a joke on people who think of others as their inferiors.
Q1: I'm gonna turn Mars into a:
a) $10bn government subsidy.
b) $20bn government bailout.
c) $10bn personal profit.
d) $20bn Parking Lot for unsaleable electric cars.
e) $10bn CGI movie.
f) $20bn Solar Wind Farm.
g) $10bn Lithium mine.
h) $20bn Rechargeable Lithium battery.
i) $10bn Figment of your imagination.
j) $30bn Waste of Space.
k) $50bn Bankruptcy.
The perfect trip for hairdressers, telephone sanitisers, traffic wardens, MEPs, MPs, County Councillors, Telesales personnel, Estate Agents, BBC employees, Newspaper reporters, Media personalities, Climate Change Scientists and (never forgetting) IT workers under 50.
Return Journey: n/a
Single Journey: $2,000,000
(Price includes a personalise towel, digital watch and daily poetry readings)
Please make your cheques payable to: CASH.
I suspect Musk will have a preference for engineers and miners - people who will be able to contribute to his "space gas station" as soon as possible. You're going to be there for a long time, not a good time...
MuskMarsCo will pay you a pittance for hard labour, and then charge extortionate rates for "luxuries" such as food, oxygen, water.
After a couple of generations of downtrodden servitude, Mars colonists will revolt, declaring cessation from Earth. Following a nasty internecine war Mars gains independence, though Martians continue to have a substantial chip on their shoulders...
Of course all that can be avoided if Arnie goes on the first mission and starts the atmosphere regeneration reactor right at the start...
As Ars Technica pointed out, who's going to pay for this fantasy? (Spoiler alert: no-one.)
The USSR tried to get to the moon by putting a very large number of engines in one booster: the N1. There's some spectacular footage of the consequent fireworks on YT; check it out. The more engines, the bigger the chance of one going bang, and though they claim to be able to survive an engine failure, I guarantee there are failure modes that lead to a very bad day.
When you're only incinerating three or four astronauts -- that's bad enough. Incinerate 100 billionaires and you've bought yourself a permanent place in the big book of human hubris.
Oh, and -- consider the mass of fuel this monster booster would have to carry (way more than SV.) How far away would you have to be at launch to be realistically safe in the event of a bad day? Again, YT has some horrific footage the Intelsat / Long March launch that rolled over to a trajectory parallel to the ground shortly after clearing the tower before crashing into a nearby town. The Chinese still haven't released casualty figures, but the footage of the aftermath shot by shocked western engineers on their way out of town makes it clear that hundreds was very optimistic. Doesn't the size of the energy release scale at something like the cube of the booster's mass?
Anyway, as the piece implies, there's more chance of me taking over as Bake Off presenter than this thing ever flying.
The USSR tried to get to the moon by putting a very large number of engines in one booster: the N1.
The USSR also built the highly reliable Soyuz rocket family from 1966 onwards, which uses 20 main engines and 12 roll-control engines in its first stage and boosters.
The N-1's problem is that the USSR tried to get to the moon with a fraction of the US's budget, a much more compressed schedule, political divisions in the aerospace industry, grossly inadequate testing that didn't identify software and hardware problems, and terrible quality control.
In a rush to beat Apollo 9 they tried launching a full-up rocket that had never even static test-fired its first stage - in fact, only 2 out of every 6 engines had ever been hot-fired, and then only individually. This missed numerous software, aerodynamic, fluid, and quality control problems of a 30-engine stage.
By the time of the first N-1 explosion, the US had flown:
1) The Gemini program to resolve questions behind the Apollo operations
2) The Ranger program, to scout the moon
3) The Surveyor program, to scout the moon
4) The Lunar Orbiter program, to scout the moon
5) 10 unmanned Saturn I missions testing the Saturn V upper stages, command module, and in-flight engine failures
6) 2 pad abort tests
7) 5 Little Joe II tests for aerial abort missions
8) 3 unmanned Saturn IB flights
9) 3 unmanned Earth orbit Saturn V flights, which ID'd critical problems like pogo'ing and water hammer that destroyed the N-1s
10) 2 manned Saturn IB flights
11) 1 manned circumlunar Saturn V flight
This was accompanied by numerous ground tests of assembled Apollo stages, which the Rooskies never did for their N-1 first stage.
My first area of interest would be dosh creation. We could start off with an exchange rate of one US Dollar to one Mars Unit. Once enough resources have been built up on the Martian surface we could have a central vault, and then of course we would move to the Mars Bar standard with the Mars Unit's value directly linked to actual transported and stored Mars Bars. Eventually of course, once a proper government had formed, we would dump the Mars Bar standard in favour of proper monetary fiat.
... my second area of interest would be formatting the Martian year into something a little more user friendly. My initial thoughts would be to have bank holidays named after specific key stage events, and each having a nominated patron saint. Thus: Foundation Day would obviously be the day the first lander arrived; it's patron would be Saint Elon Musk himself.
Another would be the day the first nuclear reactor sent from Earth was installed in the colony, Atomic Day: I think St Debbie Harry would be the appropriate patron for that day (Oh-o Atomic...)
I can't understand why it seems so difficult for people to understand the concept of emigration or colonisation. How is this seen as a suicide mission with people going to their deaths ? The truth is that everyone reading this is heading for their death whether they stay right where they are or move elsewhere. Others have commented before me, but there will be plenty of people who would jump at the chance to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where apparently too many media types are scared to go at all.
the man's mental
50 % percent of all missions to mars have failed usually in fireballs.
The Apollo missions to the moon took one third of the American budget for 10years ...way way more than 10 billion in todays money.
Isn't he happy with people dying driving his not so autonomous cars now he wants us to do the same in space.
nice pictures though..shame about the lack of real science
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The hardware isn't the issue. There is nothing holding back a trip to Mars except engineering time and money as far as the tech goes. The issue is people. Could you live in a small space for a prolonged period of time. The people doing it on Earth know that in a set length of time they will be let loose where on Mars there is not reprieve for a foreseeable future. It is known that the human body deteriorates in a 0G field much more rapidly than while on Terra Firma. Will 0.33G be any better? Nobody knows If and to what extent. The first colonists are going to have to work very hard to establish themselves so health will be a big issue. The same will be true for many additional loads until there is a sufficient critical mass of people to create habitats and food production without having to work 12 hours a day every day just to stay alive. How about kids? It's going to happen not matter how many prohibitions get stuffed into the rule book. Will those children develop normally or will they be deformed? If they make it through the first 9 months, will they grow normally? Can the initial colonies spare the time to support the next generation with part of the workforce staying at home?
Mars is too ambitious with so many unanswered questions. If Mars were covered in gold nuggets and diamonds, the cost to bring them back and the subsequent collapse of their value on Earth means that there isn't much of a commercial justification for spending the money to go. The payback is so long term that the risks outweigh the rewards right now.
The Moon, on the other hand, has huge potential. It's a good place to put theories regarding living in sealed habitats to the test. Commercial possibilities are enormous for medical and semiconductor research and production. Where is a better place to do research on Ebola than on the moon? Gene research? Crystal growth for electronics is expected to be easier in Luna. 0G work would be cheaper in a lab orbiting the moon than orbiting Earth. Using the LaGrange points is another possibility. The Moon is also very close in case something goes terribly wrong. Crews could launch back to Earth in mere days any time they need to and additional supplies can be ferried up within a week if a rocket is kept on standby.
Putting a colony on the Moon will not be easy, but it will be easier than trying to put one on Mars. Let's face it, if the first ship to Mars with 100 colonists is a total disaster, there won't be another trip for at least a century.
Too many bitter, selfish, lazy, pessimistic, arrogant, materialistic commentards on here, and throughout the western world.
If Musk wants to attempt this, then who the hell are we to say it won't work, we can't do it, it's too expensive, etc etc.
Today's humans seem to be so wrapped up in economics and their own hubris, that when anyone dares to do something that is beyond what is deemed uneconomical, or not in line with established physics, they jump on these people, and attempt to persuade them, and anyone else who is listening, that it can't/shouldn't be done, and they list reasons as to why. These reasons inevitably fall into the following categories;
Too expensive
Not economically viable/no profit
Cannot be done with today's physics/technology
Religious reasons.
All of the reasons given above are irrelevant to those attempting whatever it is they're trying - assuming that it doesn't directly affect the safety of the human race of course. Look at the past, the way everything new and considered a direct threat to the authority of the time, be it religious or governmental, there were always detractors from the truth - the flat world, the centre of the galaxy, the ability to survive in space - all these things were entirely scorned and ridiculed, yet all were proven to be correct.
How do we possibly know that what Musk is proposing won't be possible? People ridiculed the idea of a rocket that could land by itself on a moving platform in the ocean - but it's been proven to be possible.
And consider this. People talk about a fossil fuel shortage, and there are of course those that say it's a myth, and we'll never run out (usually oil companies..), Yet solar power is being used already to help with the power grid, to reduce the amount of power being created with such fuels. But what if. What if EVERY single building in the world that receives sunlight, was given a proper solar panel. Imagine the amount of power that would produce. It would probably be vast, and would severely reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned.
But those detractors immediately point out the cost of such an endeavour. There is no profit in this, therefore it's not feasible. But what IS profit? Just numbers on a spreadsheet. Important numbers of course, but numbers none the less. Imagine, just for a moment, that these numbers were irrelevant? What it solar panels were freely available and installed.
Wouldn't the global gain of such a thing become worthwhile? Profit would be second to the ability to no longer need fossil fuel. Surely THIS is the prize humanity should be aiming for, rather than how high a number we have in our bank accounts? Of course, as things are today, this isn't realistic. But with people like Musk, WILLING to use their vast resources to try these things, then the future could be a better place. But those of you who oppose this, do so with only the reasons I gave earlier - and these reasons are purely selfish. And as such, illogical.
Economics do play a role in all of our lives. The Apollo program paid back many fold through an incredible amount of research into metallurgy and electronics alone. Elon cannot pull off his vision without a tremendous amount of support from government. His wealth is mostly paper and SpaceX is currently in more trouble after blowing up it's second rocket in two years. At least one customer has pulled it's launch from SpaceX and booked with a competitor. Since they are a private company, it's hard to gauge how well the company is doing financially. It's readily apparent that Tesla Motors/Solar City are in a deep hole.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is roaring up behind SpaceX in the space launch market. Not only have they successfully landed their rocket 5 times, they did it with the same rocket where SpaceX has not reused any of theirs. BO also wasn't making substantial changes to the rocket for each flight the way SpaceX does.
If you have to ask the question "What IS profit?", you need to race to California immediately and apply for a job at any of Elon Musk's companies. You'd fit right in.
Elon Musk aims to create a future in which 1000 spaceships will fly in orbit. The cost of a ticket at some point can be reduced to about 100-140 thousand dollars, this will depend on a number of factors during the operation of the ships. Those who want to return to Earth will be able to board the ship for free, Musk concluded.